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A heart attack often attacks suddenly and without warning. Every year about 15 people lose their lives because of it. Poles. There is a dramatic increase in heart attacks among young people worldwide. All the more important is the discovery just presented, thanks to which it is possible to predict a heart attack. A simple, non-invasive eye examination is enough.
- The pattern of blood vessels in the retina of the eye can tell you about your risk of a heart attack
- The model used by the scientists is more effective than current screening methods
- Scientists say the tests will allow doctors to reduce the risk of a heart attack at an early stage
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
The death toll of heart disease
Cardiovascular diseases are still the world’s leading cause of death. 85 percent of them are caused by stroke and heart attack. This information and the statistics above show how important it is to develop new ways to diagnose your risk of a heart attack at an early stage. And here comes the good news. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh (UK) have found that the risk of a heart attack can be predicted with a simple routine eye examination.
This is possible thanks to the combination of information about the arrangement of blood vessels in the retina of the eye with genetic data. «We already knew that differences in retinal vascularization can provide insight into our health. Given that retinal imaging is a non-invasive technique, we decided to investigate the health benefits that can be obtained from these images »commented Ana Villaplana-Velasco, PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
The rest of the text is below the video.
Image of the retina of the eye and the likelihood of a heart attack
First, the patterns of branching of the retinal vessels were examined, using data from the British Biobank (UKB): demographic, epidemiological, clinical, imaging and genotypic data for over 500 people. people). Researchers then developed a model that was able to predict the risk of a heart attack by studying UKB participants who experienced it after taking images of the retina. Factors such as gender, age, blood pressure, BMI, and smoking were also taken into account.
“Surprisingly, we found that our model was able to better classify participants with low or high risk of a heart attack in UKB compared to established models that only include demographic data. The effectiveness of our model was even higher when we took into account the result associated with the genetic predisposition to develop a heart attack, »said Villaplana-Velasco.
«We found nine genetic regions driving the branching patterns of the retinal vessels. Four of these regions are known to be involved in the genetics of cardiovascular disease » – said the young scientist. “We found that these shared genetic regions are involved in heart attack severity and regeneration processes”
How do scientists predict the risk of a heart attack?
In the future, a simple retinal examination may provide enough information to identify those at risk. The mean age of onset of a heart attack is 60 years, the researchers found that their model achieved the best predictive performance more than five years before the onset of the attack. “So it seems appropriate to calculate the individualized risk of a heart attack in people over 50” Villaplan-Velasco observes. “This would enable doctors to suggest behaviors that could reduce the risk: quit smoking, maintain normal cholesterol levels and blood pressure,” says the scientist and adds: “Our work once again shows how important it is to comprehensively analyze routinely collected data and its value for further the development of personalized medicine ».
The results of the new study were presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. “This study shows how important it is to implement prevention now and how personalized health gives us the tools to do so,” emphasized conference chair Alexandre Reymond.
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